Questions to Ask at the End of an Interview

Asking questions at the end of an interview is still part of the interview process. Give yourself the best chance of getting hired by asking good questions.

A door in a foreign country. Madrid?

I hadn't intended to write another interviewing article so soon, but I have done a number of interview preparation sessions recently. In those sessions, I would ask what questions they intended to ask their interviewer. Some answers were fine, others weren't great.

The impression I got was that people generally didn't take the questions at the end of an interview seriously. "I'll think of something," they said. That's not good enough. Every part of an interview matters, and every part needs to be taken seriously.

As a side note, the family is feeling much better after Covid, I'm in the middle of building a chicken run, and just purchased some baby chicks. They're staying warm in a DIY brooder in our bath tub. So perhaps next post I'll share some photos of baby dinosaurs to mix things up.

The interviewer says that they have asked their last question. They say that the interview is complete. They ask if you have any questions.

Whew! The interview is over. You take a deep breath and relax. Right?

They might not take notes. They might lean back and relax. Yet I assure you that the interview is not over.

You send signals in your interview with every action and word. How you dress matters. How you smile or shake hands matter.

One of the most important signals you can send is the questions you ask at the end of the interview.

How could my questions impact me?

You'll interview with around five people, sometimes more. In the majority of cases, people do not receive all yes or no votes. Even for great candidates, one of the five interviewers will find something objectionable.

Most times, you have a split vote. Three yes, two no. Four yes, one no. At Amazon, you then have a formal debrief process where you discuss the candidate, and decide if you want to hire them. Other companies have their own decision process.

This is a risk vs reward balancing act. You are deciding if the positives of the candidate outweigh the risks of them not working out.

What type of information goes into the debrief? Everything the interviewers remember.

• Interviewer 3: "I was worried about their bias for action. They kept talking about thinking carefully before acting."

• Interviewer 5: "Well, they asked me how much we followed an agile process, and our sprint length. They seemed interested in having shorter sprints to get code out more quickly. That's a sign to me that their bias for action won't be a problem."

Even more than explicit interpretations like the above, there is the general appeal of candidates to consider.

You're talking about a candidate you know very little about. Some things seemed good, some things seemed risky. How do you decide if you should fall on the yes or no side? When do you take a risk or pass?

In my experience, I think it often comes down to the candidate's general appeal. I don't mean their good looks, I mean did we feel like they were going to be good co-workers? Not everything is a concrete signal.

Sometimes we are looking for excuses to hire someone. Sometimes we're looking for excuses to not hire someone.

But I thought this was my time, not part of the interview?

That's a cute black and white interpretation of things. But it's not reality.

If you are walking out of your interview and mention that the recruiter is attractive, you will probably not be hired. Yes, I've seen this.

(Do co-workers sometimes find each other attractive? Absolutely. Do we talk about it with others in public, or during important events like an interview? No.)

If you dress in ripped jeans, and put your feet on the table while interviewing, you will probably not be hired. Yes, I've seen this too.

(Do people dress in ripped jeans at Amazon? Sure. Do we expect you to take the interview seriously and look at least a tiny bit professional? Also yes.)

And if at the end of the interview you ask, "How soon before I can take a sabbatical? I want to take a few months off to travel soon.", it's unlikely you'll be hired. Yeah, I've seen that.

(Do we support people taking vacations, or unpaid sabbaticals? Certainly vacations, sometimes sabbaticals once you've proven yourself. If this is your top priority during an interview, you probably should take a new job after you travel the world.)

As long as you're in visible or hearing range of the company you're interviewing at, you're currently in an interview. Act that way.

But I have questions I want answered!

If they're questions which will also send a positive hiring signal, then great.

If they're HR questions (How many vacation days do I get?) or specific tactical questions you can ask later (What deployment software do you use?), then ask them later.

This is still an interview, and if you get an offer, you can almost always get someone on the phone to answer a dozen more questions if you're curious about things before accepting an offer.

A foreign country.

What signals should I be sending?

There are a number of things you might want to communicate. One suggestion—ask different questions from different people. It's often apparent if someone's asking the same questions of everyone. And that's just boring.

For everyone, a good signal to send:

I'm excited about this job! - AKA I like this company and team. You're all great. Hug.

For hiring managers, some signals you might want to send:

1. I want to be independent! - AKA I want to be an easy employee to manage. I will ramp up quickly, learn things, and get out of that useless new hire phase quickly.

2. I want to achieve our goals! - AKA I'm going to make you look good.

For co-workers, some signals you might want to send:

1. I want to help you! - AKA I'm going to be a partner in getting your stuff done.

2. I really respect you! - AKA I'm going to listen to your recommendations, and you don't need to feel threatened that I'm going to step on your toes. I'll respect what was done before I joined.

3. I'm going to be a great team member! - AKA I'll be polite in team meetings, collaborative, and friendly.

Questions: I'm excited about this job

1. What's your favorite thing about working on this team?

2. What's the most exciting project you've worked on recently?

3. What does a typical day look like in this position?

Questions: I want to be independent

1. What do you think is the hardest part about ramping up here? Any suggestions on how to be successful as quickly as possible?

2. How does work on our team get assigned? If I see something I'm passionate about, can I just grab it, or do we have another method of assigning work?

Questions: I want to achieve our goals

1. What do you think slows our team down the most? What prevents us from hitting our goals?

2. Do you have an idea of what my first project might be if I was hired? I'd love to have an idea of the type of work I'd be doing if I was hired.

3. I'm excited about career growth and being successful as quickly as possible. How would you describe your coaching style?

Questions: I want to help you

1. How well does our team handle remote work? Is there anything that you think we could do better?

2. Do we have an on-call rotation? How quickly could I join the rotation? I feel like helping with operations would help me ramp up quickly.

3. How long after we are code-complete on something does the code reach our customers? Do you think there's any low-hanging fruit there?

Questions: I really respect you

1. I suspect that you're one of the people I'll have a lot of questions for while ramping up. If there any type of formal ramping up process, or could I meet with you occasionally to ask questions?

2. What is a common mistake people make while joining, and how would you recommend I avoid making that mistake?

Questions: I'm going to be a great team member

1. If someone on the team has a suggestion for a technical or product improvement, is there any type of formal process to get traction on it? How might you go about moving something forward?

2. If there is a challenging technical disagreement on the team, how do we make the final decision? How well does the team solve debates?

3. How often does the team have any type of team bonding event? Is that something team members organize, or does the manager organize things?

How many questions should I ask?

You need to send a signal to your interviewer that you're deeply excited about this position. This means that you have an unlimited number of questions.

I'd ask questions until it is clear that you're out of time. Just be aware of when the interview officially ends. If you have more time, you ask more questions.

What shouldn't I ask?

Few ones I regularly hear, which I'd recommend against.

a) How much is this position paid? - Most people on the loop can't answer that, and the pay range information is usually available online. Companies negotiate salary when you have an offer. This question suggests you don't know how to interview, and you're somewhat an awkward person.

b) Why should I take this offer instead of my Google offer? - This isn't terrible, since it shows you're in demand, but it rubs in people's faces that you're not sure that their company is as good as the other company. Feeling defensive isn't the emotion you want from them. Just like dating, you don't talk about your other boyfriends and girlfriends. Evaluate the company on its own merits.

c) What does this team do? - You should already know that, right? You hopefully read the job description, and Googled as much as you could. Unless you were being interviewed by a secret confidential team (in which case they probably won't answer this question), you should already have researched things. When working in EC2 Networking, I had someone ask what EC2 was, while interviewing for EC2. It suggested a stunning lack of awareness.

d) What country are you from? - Don't ask personal questions. You can chat about people's hairstyles over beers once you're hired. Don't even approach gender, race, country they came from, sexual orientation, etc. It scares interviewers and isn't helpful.

e) Can I transfer teams once I join? - You're suggesting that you don't want to join this team. If you need to know that answer before you join, carefully ask the recruiter once you have an offer in-hand.

f) How soon can I get a raise and/or promotion? - Suggesting that you'd like career development is great. But this type of question suggests that you're high maintenance, and will probably be a huge pain to your manager. Show that you're successful before you start pushing for more.

g) I don't have any questions left. - Only acceptable if you've given up on interviewing and you just want to go home. This sends a strong signal that you just don't care about the job or the person who interviewed you.

This seems like a lot of information for just asking some questions at the end of an interview!

Interviewing is like buying a house. You often have a limited amount of time to make a fantastically impactful decision. Both parties are going to be heavily impacted for years.

Many candidates end up on the borderline of yes. There's going to be a debate. Having interesting questions for each candidate can make the difference between a new career for the next ten years, or a no.

Yes, it's a lot to take in. But interviewing is a skill, and it's worth the investment to do your best at it.

Good luck to all of you! If you want to read more about interviewing, take a look at my other interviewing related articles.